


Carved pumpkins, demon babies

by Apsacta



Series: Rain, from our fingertips [2]
Category: Twosetviolin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Halloween, Kids, M/M, Witch!Eddy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:42:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27290647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apsacta/pseuds/Apsacta
Summary: 🎃  🎃  🎃
Relationships: Eddy Chen/Brett Yang
Series: Rain, from our fingertips [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1992553
Comments: 20
Kudos: 50





	Carved pumpkins, demon babies

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Halloween 👻

#  Coda: four little demons and one tiny ghost.

It’s the patter of the rain against the kitchen window that shakes him from his rest.

It’s quiet at first. Delicate, almost. Muted pulse against the glass pane that is very easy to ignore. It’s very rare when it’s this peaceful in the house. It’s something to be appreciated, scarce enough to be treasured, when calm is allowed to wash over the roof like ocean waves. It never lasts. There’s always something. Uncontrolled chaos, ever since  _ he  _ showed up.

It used to be so quiet, rain lulling them to sleep, a soft comfort. But there’s a fire always boiling underneath now, noises and explosions under the roof and over his head. Happy shouts and excited screams, the pitter patter of tiny feet rushing up and down the stairs. Hard to find moments to rest in between these bursts of life. It’s exhausting. The current calm is more than welcome.

It doesn’t last.

The rain gets louder, uncomfortable. It falls against the window, and then on the counter, and then in blotches in the water, in circles, above his head. A low whistle outside, and then sheets of paper from the table fly across the room. Some idiot must’ve left the window open.

Lights flicker on and  _ he  _ walks in.

“Ah fuuuck, no, fuck, sorry, shit, no swearing, oops, window.”

He closes the window, and picks up the papers, muttering something under his breath. When he’s got them all neatly stacked on the table, he comes to the fish tank and taps the glass with his index finger, wicked smiles, sparkly eyes, crows feet.

“How’re you doing, fishstick?”

He’s extremely annoying and Mozart never liked him.

He showed up all smiles, with his wicked, wicked eyes and his pointy horns, and then it was all over. Everything used to be peaceful before that. Before the laughter and the anarchy and the flirting, god, so much flirting. Mozart could rest, then. He never had to worry about sudden noises and magic would only burst out when Eddy wasn’t paying attention. The rest of the time, he could enjoy the quiet. Now it’s all changed and there’s never a moment of stillness in the house.

Even the music has changed. Not that Mozart cares much for music, or magic, for that matter. But still. It was nice, before, when it was just him and Eddy. Calm.

Of course, he won’t deny that the little ones make for a reasonable distraction, but Mozart sure as Hell wishes they would stop trying to feed him sweets and biscuits when their parents aren’t watching. Eddy, at least, always fed him proper, decent food when it was just them. He didn’t do much right, but he did that, at least.

If he’s to be honest, Mozart has to admit that he’s always thought that humans were one of the dumbest, if not the dumbest, species on earth. And out of all the humans, Eddy Chen is certainly not the brightest, nor is he the most perceptive. Case in point. Mozart had to watch him shamelessly flirt with the devil for months, all while he had absolutely no clue what he was doing. Or who he was directing all these toothy smiles at.

Mozart knew from the start, of course. It was never hard to guess. He knew the moment the atmosphere in the house changed, before he even appeared. He knew from the smell in the air, from the ripples in the water. He knew what Eddy had done long before he himself realised. He knew, when the man perched himself on a chair in the kitchen, with his hands wrapped around a mug and his head tilted to the side as he listened to Eddy rambling, that the devil had entered the house.

Mozart spent weeks,  _ weeks _ , trying to warn his dumb human. Weeks spent sending him clues, from the colours he changed to, to the way he stared at the devil. 

Useless, of course. Eddy never caught on. It’s not easy, when you’re a fish. Especially when you’re trying to communicate with someone who does not want to see. But Mozart still tried, though, and the devil knew, of course. The meanness in his smirk as he tapped the glass every time he came into the kitchen.

And now the devil lives here, with them, and Mozart still doesn’t like him.

And he still taps the glass, still makes faces at the fish, still taunts him from across the room.

“Don’t be mad, hey,” he says, nose pressed to the glass. “I’m doing well by him, no?”

Mozart does nothing. He couldn’t turn a darker shade of black, even if he wished.

“Ah, come on fishie, he just loves ...”

He never gets to finish what he’s saying. There’s a commotion somewhere upstairs, followed by giggles, and then the smell of fire, and the devil sighs.

“Alright, little demons, which one of you is trying to burn down the house?” he shouts, amused. He’s even smiling as he leaves the kitchen to sort it out. But it’s too late. The quiet is gone and happy chuckles ring around the house.

So, Mozart resigns himself. No more rest today. Not with the noise. Not with the delighted wheezes upstairs, and the devil desperately trying to reign in the chaos. Mozart already knows that it’s a lost battle. He’s not even trying that hard, and the fish is convinced that he’s having too much fun to actually try to stop the mess. It’s always like that when Eddy’s not home.

It’s raining harder now, heavy against the window and on the roof, and the wind is getting stronger too, howling when the door opens again. Can a fish ever catch a break, really?

It’s only Eddy.

Mozart doesn’t think he could’ve handled any more chaos in his house, so it’s a relief. 

Eddy comes to the kitchen first – old habits die hard – and Mozart feels proud, even though it’s entirely justified. They’ve been together the longest, after all. It’s only natural that Eddy comes to him first. He smiles, tired, arms full before he drops three pumpkins on the table.

“Hey, buddy,” he says, carefully removes his violin case and places it next to the fish tank. “Where’s everyone?” There’s a fondness in his eyes, an understanding that makes Mozart feel satisfied. 

But Eddy turns his attention away from the fish too quickly. Half-hurried footsteps down the stairs and he’s absent already, focused on the man entering the room with a grin.

“How was rehearsal?” the devil asks, and Eddy’s entire face lights up.

“Fine. You’ll come see, yeah? If we find someone to...”

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

He looks so happy that Mozart almost feels bad for disliking Brett. Those smiles on Eddy’s face are new, and they’re the devil’s entirely.

“Brought pumpkins,” Eddy mumbles, melting in the devil’s embrace.

“You look tired. We can always push back if you need rest.” 

“No, Halloween’s today, we’ve promised them. They were so excited about it.”

“It’s not every day that they can go out in their natural form, hey,” Brett says, “oh, speaking of. We got you something.”

And then he grabs the biggest witch hat to place it on Eddy’s head. 

“Nice,” Brett says with a wink, “hot,” and Eddy laughs as he takes the hat off and places it on his violin case.

“Ridiculous.” He shakes his head but he kisses Brett anyway, and at that point Mozart has to look away because he’s seen enough of that.

“Someone’s horny,” Eddy snorts, hands tangled in Brett’s hair.

“Back at it with the dad puns, I see.”

“I am a dad,” Eddy says, and he laughs. Happy. “How was your day, by the way? Did they behave?”

Brett sighs and shakes his head, then buries his face against Eddy’s chest. “I love them so much, Eddy. It made me think, you know... maybe another one wouldn’t be so bad... ”

“Dude...”

“I’m not saying right now. Just, maybe we can talk about it some time.”

There’s a long silence, and everything is suspiciously calm. No cacophony upstairs, and even the rain calms down a bit. And it might be nice, but Mozart’s lived in this house long enough to know that it’s only a sign of what’s to come.

He doesn’t even have to wait that long.

“ _ Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad” _

A tiny missile bolts down the stairs, runs straight into Eddy, doesn’t even stop when he collides with his legs. It’s a tiny kid, with fluffy brown hair and droopy eyes, little horns peeking through the hair and a pointy tail. And way too much energy for his size.

“Viola, viola, viola...” he chants, raising his arms towards Eddy until he’s picked up.

Eddy looks at Brett with question marks in his eyes.

“We went to the instrument shop today, yeah? For the instruments.”

“So? What did they choose?” There’s excitement in Eddy’s voice, and Mozart has to look. He does not want to miss this. Seeing the devil squirm is worth all the tapping on the glass and all the annoyance.

“Uuuh...”

“One viola, uh?” Eddy says, looking at the child in his arms before looking back at Brett. “I mean, we knew they wouldn’t all go for the violin... Do we have to buy a piano?”

The devil mumbles something as he looks away, and Mozart feels a petty sense of joy at his embarrassment.

“Sorry, what?” Eddy says, and the kid chuckles.

“No violin.” Brett looks appalled and a little bit sorry. “No piano either. One viola. One French horn...”

“Well, I suppose...”

“Piccolo... bass...” Brett adds very quickly and very quietly.

“Okay, that’s...,” Eddy begins, but he doesn’t finish his sentence, shakes his head and attempts a smile. “All instruments are top tier, yeah?” he asks, uncertain.

Brett doesn’t answer, so Eddy turns to the child in his arms, smiles at him and pokes at the little horns. “Viola, hey Tristan? That’s nice.”

Tristan’s eyes sparkle with delight. “Can I show you, can I, can I, can I?”

“You sure can,” Brett says, taking the child from Eddy. “Let’s go get your viola and assemble the rest of the army.” He turns to Eddy with a grin. “You know, one more little demon would be one more chance to have a violin player, yeah? Maybe little Ling Ling would even be a prodigy.”

Eddy just shakes his head. “Wait,” he calls when the devil makes his way out of the room, Tristan hoisted on his back. “That’s four instruments.”

The devil chuckles, and Mozart has to roll his eyes. He’s taking so much pleasure in the whole thing, Mozart honestly doesn’t understand it. And Eddy isn’t even mad that none of the kids chose violin as their instrument. It’s just weird.

“Ah, yes,” the devil says, with an evil grin. “Carmen said no music. She wants to play rugby.”

“She wants to what?”

“Sports.” 

There’s a long silence that’s almost funny, and Brett disappears up the stairs again, accompanied by quiet chants of  _ viola, viola _ .  _ Weak _ , Mozart thinks, but he can’t really blame him. It’s hard to say no to the kids. It’s in the way they smile, Mozart thinks, those toothy grins are impossible to resist. Not a surprise, really, that the devil’s children are so good at getting their way with things. Mozart would be more surprised at the ease with which they get the devil to give in to their every whim, if he hadn’t seen Eddy do the same thing for years, toothy grins and all. 

“Sports,” Eddy mutters, shaking his head, “that’s a new one.” 

Mozart watches him rummage through drawers with removed curiosity, more interested in the little figure sneaking into the room, covered with a white sheet from head to toe. Eddy still hasn’t noticed, but there’s nothing new there. It gets all the way to Eddy and latches onto his leg before Eddy notices, its small arms clumsily wrapping around Eddy’s knee under the sheet. 

The child in a home-made ghost costume lets out a little whine as he presses his face against Eddy’s leg. 

If Eddy’s at all surprised, he doesn’t let on. He just wraps a hand on top of the little head and pets him gently. The horns under the sheet make weird, cat ears shapes, and Eddy smiles fondly. 

“Hey, Faust, what’s wrong?”

“ ‘m a ghost,” the child answers, voice muffled by the sheet he wears on his head.

Eddy keeps petting him with one hand while getting scissors out of the drawer with the other. “Yeah, I see that. Nice costume. Did daddy make it?”

“Yea.”

“I can tell. C’mon, let me fix it.”

He’s reluctant to part with the costume at first and Eddy has to cajole him for a bit before he lets him take it, and even then, he pouts a little once it’s off, but still crawls on Eddy’s lap when he sits down to cut proper holes for the eyes. 

“We’ll have a baby brother or sister?” He asks softly after a moment.

“So you heard that, hey? Would you want one?”

“Yes please.”

There’s a short silence, and Eddy finishes fixing up the costume, which is proving harder that he thought, with a child on his lap. No wonder Brett did a shoddy job, with four more of them to look after at the same time. 

“Daddy says we grew in the garden,” Faust chirps after a moment. “With all the plants.”

“Really? Well, daddy says a lot of things.”

“He also said in the oven. Before. Like clay.”

“Well, surely not,” Eddy chuckles. Trust Brett to get out of answering that way. “Not in the oven. That’s way too warm. You stay away from ovens now, Faust.” 

“So in the garden?” the child insists. “How?” 

“Shh, it’s magic.” 

Before he can ask more questions, there’s the sound of little feet rushing down the stairs, along with shouts of ‘viola, viola’, and a cacophony of instruments. 

There’s four more of them in the kitchen soon, all with fluffy hair and little horns, droopy eyes and wonky teeth, all surrounding Eddy with big eyes and toothy smiles. Three of them have instruments. There’s a viola, and a piccolo, and a bass, and then there’s a French horn, once Brett hands it to Faust, and they improvise a symphony that sounds a lot more like the kind of torture that you hear when you enter hell. 

“Interesting, but that’ll need a bit of work,” Brett says when they finish, long after what they’re playing has stopped sounding like anything else than a horror movie soundtrack.

“We’ll find you a teacher,” Eddy adds, helping them put the instruments away, “with some practice that should be fine.”

“Who wants to carve pumpkins?” Brett asks before they can run away to wreak havoc in the house again.

At last,  _ at last, _ things calm down a little in the house when they all sit down around the kitchen table, turning the pumpkin carving into a contest that Eddy’s team wins hands down. Though it’s pretty clear that Brett stopped trying halfway through and just let his little demons do whatever they wanted, with mixed results, at least until Carmen and Orfeo start throwing little bits of pumpkins at each other, and Brett has to tell them to stop. 

In the end, none of the pumpkins look even remotely scary, but they all look so proud of themselves that their parents aren’t going to mention anything about it anyway. They give up entirely on the third pumpkin, leaving Eddy to carve it all himself, while the children busy themselves by telling all about what they did that day

( _ “... and then, daddy said we could pick any instrument we wanted…” _

_ “But I wanted a marimba and daddy said no…” _

_ “Because marimbas are ugly.” _

_ “You’re ugly, Romeo!” _

_ “Carmen didn’t even want an instrument. It’s sad…” _

_ “I don’t like music. It’s for babies.”  _

_ “... don’t  _ you _ think it’s sad, dad?” _

_ “Can we get a cat?”  _

_ “Stop talking Tristan. I’m trying to tell dad…”  _

_ “... but marimbas are cool, right?” _

_ “Why don’t you want a cat, dad?”  _

_ “... so i said i wanted to play the organ…”  _

_ “... cats are way better than fishes.... sorry Moz.”  _

_ “... you know, like they have in the churches…” _

_ “Or a puppy. Can we get a puppy?” _

_ “... but then daddy started hissing. So i got a piccolo…”  _ )

“I think it’s time,” Brett says when Eddy’s finally done. 

“Time for what?” all five little voices ask, in unison for once.

“Time to put these terrifying pumpkins in front of the door, and then we can all go trick or treating.” 

It’s like there’s an explosion of noise in the kitchen at those words, excitement building up faster than it had calmed down, and within minutes they’re running everywhere, getting shoes and coats and bags ready for the evening. 

“Put your hat on, witch,” Brett says as he rubs at Eddy’s shoulder when he walks behind him, and then, when the children are already waiting in the hallway, “it’s still raining, maybe it would be better if it stopped before we go out. I don’t want them getting sick.”

And Eddy just nods and smiles.

The rain stops shortly after, and they finally, finally all leave the house, and Mozart is allowed his well-deserved rest. 

It’s not always easy, living in this house with this family from hell. There’s never, ever, a quiet day in the house. When it’s not the parents busy plotting god knows what, it’s the children making enough noise to wake up the entire street. 

You need to have a lot of patience to endure all that, but lucky for them, Mozart does have an awful lot of patience. He learned that from living with the dumbest witch in existence. And when he thinks about it, it is getting calmer these days. Or maybe he’s just getting used to it. Whatever it is, if he’s being really honest, he sort of hopes the devil does get his wish in the end. It’s been too long since there was another baby in the house. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading


End file.
